This invention relates to textile machinery and its use, and more particularly to textile manufacturing machines such as tufting machines, warping machines and the like utilized with a creel or other yarn or yarn-type supplies which provide a plurality of yarn strands fed through a single yarn guide such as an eye of a needle in textile machinery.
In textile machines, such as tufting machines, yarn is normally fed to the machinery either directly from a creel or from a warper. A creel is a frame having an array of vertical and horizontal support members including a multiplicity of yarn cone holders. A yarn cone is a spool about which yarn is wound. There are a multiplicity of yarn cone holders provided in horizontally and vertically disposed pairs, one cone holder of the pair mounting the active yarn cone and the other mounting a reserve or magazine cone used after the active cone is emptied. Each cone holder pair normally has its own yarn guide tube through which yarn on each holder of the pair may be fed. While this is the standard arrangement for creels, other creel configurations could also be utilized for tufting machines.
A warper is normally a machine having a large spool, known in the art as a beam, on which yarn is wound and which subsequently supplies the yarn to a tufting machine. These may have more than one yarn wound thereabout and even a plurality of beams may be utilized such as mini-beams as described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,592,069.
In the art of tufting, generally a strand of yarn is fed through each needle. However, there are some occasions when it may be desired to feed a plurality of fine yarn strands to each needle for providing tufted fabrics having unique patterns. Presently, when such need arises, and in order to supply more than one yarn strand to a needle of a tufting machine, the yarn strands are cabled together onto a single yarn cone or to reserve a magazine position as used for mounting an active cone. Cabling involves winding the plural yarns onto a single yarn cone, but yarn manufacturers typically merchandise yarn cones with but a single yarn wound thereon. Thus, cabling requires unwinding the yarn cones from several cones and rewinding the yarns as a group on the multi-yarn cones. Cabling is therefore believed to be inconvenient and time consuming. Magazining, on the other hand, would appear to limit to two the number of yarn strands capable of being used and thus limits the pattern potential.
In an effort to overcome the disadvantages of the prior art, U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,531,392 and 5,613,643, incorporated by reference, are directed to providing multiple yarn strands to a single yarn guide tube. This is believed to be a huge advance over the prior art. Where multiple yarns are provided through the method and apparatus taught in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,531,392 and 5,613,643, they often result in a relatively random pattern of yarn color as the multiple yarns can be twisted during the feeding process to the tufting or other textile machine. Normally this is a desirable effect. However, if the manufacturer desires to have more control on the colors displayed on a finished product such as a repeating pattern or design, the current technology provides no solution. Control of which textures and/or colors of multiple yarns passing through a particular needle is predominantly displayed is currently not believed to be possible utilizing any of the currently known methods to the applicant.